Teaching Narrative

This narrative repeats a little of what I stated in my previous blog.  However this is what will be in my Course Portfolio so I would appreciate any and all feedback. 

Teaching Narrative/Personal Statement

There is nothing as flexible as language. What intrigues me about studying languages, especially English is that a slim chance and fat chance can mean the same thing and that it is possible to park in a driveway and drive on a parkway”. I came to the Unites States with my family as a refugee from Bosnia in 1995. I started taking an English as a Second Language class when I was placed in the third grade and it was in ESL that I discovered a love for learning language. I noticed that my ESL teacher, a woman named Linda Neuenschwander was able to communicate with me regardless of my lack of literacy in English. This was as amazing as it was comforting and perplexing since none of my other teachers could. I was able to learn English with confidence and ease because of her skill and patience. I would consider it an honor to learn what she knew about English that made a ten year old refugee able to learn language with confidence. It is also my hope that one day that I can be a successful ESL teacher.  I believe that it is one of the largest ways that I can make an impact, and there is little else that I consider more valuable than teaching English as a Second Language. 

 As a Colorado State University undergraduate student, the lion’s share of my volunteer work has been geared towards English Language Learners at the Intensive English Program.  It thrilled me to participate in Conversation Groups that help students learn English just as I once had. I am happy to see that my background provides helpful support for their own efforts to learn English. 

I grew up speaking two languages: Serbo-Croatian (my native language) and English. Growing up with two languages helped me become a good language student because knowing how to compare and analyze differences between the languages I knew made learning new ones easier. In High School I started learning French, which began a lifelong interest in learning language.

Each language I studied opened a door to a culture that was foreign from my own and I have never had a single regret. Studying Linguistics has offered me the chance to use language in ways that would open my eyes further to different ways of communicating across many demographics of people.

Another deciding factor in my decision to pursue Linguistics in Graduate School was my time studying abroad. Last summer, in order to increase my French fluency, I traveled to France to study at the Institute for American Universities in beautiful Aix-en-Provence. I decided to study in France in order to test my communication skills learned in my French classes.  Returning from that trip made me all the more determined to pursue my language studies. Learning language and language teaching has become an integral part of my life and I am confident it will lead me to a successful future.

The concentration of “language” that I chose within my major was my introduction to the field of Linguistics. CSU does not have “Linguistics” as a major but I have found ways to supplement my curriculum with Linguistics classes. Dr. Gerald Delahunty, my academic advisor, is also a Professor in the Graduate TEFL/TESL program. After taking one class with him at the Undergraduate level, he advised me to take a Graduate Level course. I began taking some of his classes such as  “Semantics, Pragmatics, and Discourse Analysis” and “Phonology/Morphology” and found that I was truly interested in Linguistics.  This was also a way to prove to myself that I would be successful in Graduate School. I have been devoted to it ever since because I found it easy to apply the languages that I have learned to what was presented in class and see how people learn about the structure of languages they do not speak.  

  The perplexities of English in particular are something that could be studied within the course of a lifetime and still remain mysterious.  No one language can ever be frozen in time because there are so many parts of communication that are so ephemeral they must be studied in the moment that they’re born. This is partly what makes teaching emergent bilingual students, students who are adding a language or languages to their repertoire, difficult.  An ESL teacher has to face these issues in ways that other teachers don’t and he/she must be dedicated to their students because their futures depend on it.  I would be an honor and a lifelong endeavor to be an effective ESL instructor.